Religious Pluralism
Religious pluralism is the state of being where every individual in a religiously diverse society has the rights, freedoms, and safety to worship, or not, according to their conscience. This definition is founded in the American motto e pluribus unum, that we, as a nation, are gathered together as one out of many.
Religious pluralism is an attitude or policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society.
First, pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or among them.
Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.
Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another.
Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence.
In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.
Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments.
It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.
Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences.
Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table” will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table with one’s commitments.
In this article you will be able to understand the critical issues that are involved in the study of religion and interact more meaningfully on issues of interfaith dialogue.
Religious Pluralism, Diversity and Tolerance
Religious pluralism, to paraphrase the title of a recent academic work, goes beyond mere toleration.
Beneke, in Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism explains the difference between religious tolerance and religious pluralism by pointing to the situation in the late 18th century United States.
By the 1730s, in most colonies religious minorities had obtained what contemporaries called religious toleration: “The policy of toleration relieved religious minorities of some physical punishments and some financial burdens, but it did not make them free from the indignities of prejudice and exclusion.
Nor did it make them equal. Those ‘tolerated’ could still be barred from civil offices, military positions, and university posts.” This has happened in many countries around the world.
In short, religious toleration is only the absence of religious persecution, and does not necessarily preclude religious discrimination. Religious pluralism can be defined as “respecting the otherness of others” and accepting the given uniqueness endowed to each one of us. Religious intolerance, defined as the practice of keeping others from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs, is not new.
However, there is concern worldwide over the increasing amount, and increasingly violent nature, of such behavior. Accordingly, there is understandably a renewed interest in fostering religiously tolerant environments in which individuals with differing religious perspectives can practice their faiths unencumbered.
A number of philosophers have recently turned their attention to the relationship between religious diversity and religious tolerance, with the main focus on whether acknowledgement of, and subsequent reflection on, religious diversity might lead to greater religious tolerance.
The main argument supporting the claim that acknowledged diversity can foster tolerance was proposed by the late Philip Quinn (Quinn, 2001, 57–80; 2002, 533–537; 2005a, 136–139). He maintained that:
(1) Serious reflection on the undeniable reality of religious diversity will necessarily weaken an individual’s justification for believing that her religious perspective is superior to the perspectives of others and that
(2) this weakened justification can, and hopefully will for some, lead to greater religious tolerance — for example, will lead to a more accepting, less confrontational attitude toward others.
Both of Quinn’s contentions have been challenged. The claim that reflection of the acknowledged reality of religious diversity reduces an individual’s justified confidence in the superiority of her position has been subject to at least two types of criticism.
As noted earlier in our discussion of religious diversity and epistemic obligation, some philosophers agree with Alvin Plantinga that the proponent of a given religious perspective need not grant that his competitors are actually on equal epistemic footing and are thus justified in continuing to maintain that his perspective is superior without further reflection.
Other philosophers do not deny that proponents of differing religious perspectives are on equal epistemic footing or that reflection on these diversity perspectives might in some cases actually cause an individual to become less certain that her perspective is superior.
But they deny that there is any necessary epistemic connection between acknowledged diversity and a weakening of justified personal commitment. That is, they argue that a proponent of a given religious perspective can acknowledge both that those holding perspectives differ from hers are epistemic peers and that she is not in a position to demonstrate objectively that her position is superior and yet justifiably continue to maintain that her perspective is in fact superior.
Quinn’s second contention that weakened justification in the superiority of one’s perspective has the promising potential for fostering religious tolerance has also been challenged.
For instance, William Lane Craig, Robert McKim, and Keith Yandell have all argued recently that the weakening of a person’s conviction that the specific teachings of her religion, including the relevant moral teachings that prohibit intolerance, are correct might in turn actually make it more likely that this person will engage in intolerant behavior as it may well deflate the very confidence in the relevant beliefs needed for inspiring tolerance.
Others, such as William Hasker, have questioned whether Quinn’s challenge to those who hold firmly to the superiority of their religious perspectives that the reality of religious diversity requires that they hold their perspectives less firmly will have the effect Quinn intended.
It was his hope that those challenged in this fashion would “soften” their exclusivist convictions and thus be less likely to engage in intolerant behavior. But might not just the opposite occur? Might not those told that the reality of religious diversity reduces their justified confidence in their beliefs feel threatened and thus, in an attempt to “stand up for the truth,” become even more intolerant of those with other perspectives (Hasker, 2007)?
Those sympathetic to Quinn’s position do not deny that some finding the justification for their religious beliefs challenged will respond defensively or that some coming to hold their religious beliefs less confidently might for that reason find themselves with a weaker basis for refraining from intolerant behavior.
But those sympathetic to Quinn’s “pathway from diversity to tolerance” maintain that acknowledged religious diversity can, and often does, foster in a person
(1) A greater respect for her epistemic competitors and their positions
(2) A more flexible, inclusive understanding of her own position, and that those who respect their competitors and have a more inclusive understanding of their own perspectives are less likely to engage in inappropriate intolerant religious behavior.
7 Major Theories of the Origin of Religion
Interfaith Dialogue
Religious pluralism is sometimes used as a synonym for interfaith dialogue. Interfaith dialogue refers to dialogue between members of different religions for the goal of reducing conflicts between their religions and to achieve agreed upon mutually desirable goals.
Inter-religious dialogue is difficult if the partners adopt a position of particularism, i.e. if they only care about the concerns of their own group, but is favored by the opposite attitude of universalism, where care is taken for the concerns of others.
Interfaith dialogue is easier if a religion’s adherents have some form of inclusivism, the belief that people in other religions may also have a way to salvation, even though the fullness of salvation can be achieved only in one’s own religion.
Conversely, believers with an exclusivist mindset will rather tend to proselytize followers of other religions, than seek an open-ended dialogue with them.
Conditions for the existence of religious pluralism
Religious Tolerance
Freedom of religion encompasses all religions acting within the law in a particular region, whether or not an individual religion accepts that other religions are legitimate or that freedom of religious choice and religious plurality in general are good things.
Exclusivist religions teach that theirs is the only way to salvation and to religious truth, and some of them would even argue that it is necessary to suppress the falsehoods taught by other religions.
Some Protestant sects argue fiercely against Roman Catholicism, and fundamentalist Christians of all kinds teach that religious practices like those of paganism and witchcraft are pernicious.
Many religious believers believe that religious pluralism should entail not competition but cooperation, and argue that societal and theological change is necessary to overcome religious differences between different religions, and denominational conflicts within the same religion.
For most religious traditions, this attitude is essentially based on a non-literal view of one’s religious traditions, hence allowing for respect to be engendered between different traditions on fundamental principles rather than more marginal issues.
It is perhaps summarized as an attitude which rejects focus on immaterial differences, and instead gives respect to those beliefs held in common. Relativism, the belief that all religions are equal in their value and that none of the religions gives access to absolute truth, is an extreme form of inclusivism.
Likewise, syncretism, the attempt to take over creeds of practices from other religions or even to blend practices or creeds from different religions into one new faith is an extreme form of inter-religious dialogue.
Syncretism must not be confused with ecumenism, the attempt to bring closer and eventually reunite different denominations of one religion that have a common origin but were separated by a schism.
The plurality of religious traditions and cultures has come to characterize every part of the world today.
But what is pluralism? Here are four points to begin our thinking:
1. Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or among them.
Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.
2. Pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another.
Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence.
In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.
3. Pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments.
It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.
With respect to many, if not most issues, there exist significant differences of opinion among individuals who seem to be equally knowledgeable and sincere.
Individuals who apparently have access to the same information and are equally interested in the truth affirm incompatible perspectives on, for instance, significant social, political, and economic issues. Such diversity of opinion, though, is nowhere more evident than in the area of religious thought.
On almost every religious issue, honest, knowledgeable people hold significantly diverse, often incompatible beliefs. Religious diversity of this sort can fruitfully be explored in many ways for instance, from psychological, anthropological, or historical perspectives.
The current discussion, however, will concern itself primarily with those key issues surrounding religious diversity with which philosophers, especially analytic philosophers of religion, are most concerned at present.
Specifically, our discussion will focus primarily on the following questions: How pervasive is religious diversity? Does the reality of this diversity require a response? Can a person who acknowledges religious diversity remain justified in claiming just one perspective to be correct?
If so, is it morally justifiable to attempt to convert others to a different perspective? Can it justifiably be claimed that only one religion offers a path into the eternal presence of God? The answers to such questions are not simply academic. They increasingly have great impact on how we treat others, both personally and corporately.
With respect to many, if not most issues, there exist significant differences of opinion among individuals who seem to be equally knowledgeable and sincere. Individuals who apparently have access to the same information and are equally interested in the truth affirm incompatible perspectives on, for instance, significant social, political, and economic issues. Such diversity of opinion, though, is nowhere more evident than in the area of religious thought.
On almost every religious issue, honest, knowledgeable people hold significantly diverse, often incompatible beliefs.
Religious diversity of this sort can fruitfully be explored in many ways for instance, from psychological, anthropological, or historical perspectives.
The current discussion, however, will concern itself primarily with those key issues surrounding religious diversity with which philosophers, especially analytic philosophers of religion, are most concerned at present. Specifically, our discussion will focus primarily on the following questions:
How pervasive is religious diversity? Does the reality of this diversity require a response? Can a person who acknowledges religious diversity remain justified in claiming just one perspective to be correct?
If so, is it morally justifiable to attempt to convert others to a different perspective? Can it justifiably be claimed that only one religion offers a path into the eternal presence of God? The answers to such questions are not simply academic. They increasingly have great impact on how we treat others, both personally and corporately.
The Pervasiveness of Religious Diversity
Religious diversity exists most noticeably at the level of basic theistic systems. For instance, while within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam it is believed that God is a personal deity, within Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhism God’s existence is denied and within Hinduism the concept of a personal deity is, in an important sense, illusory.
Within many forms of Christianity and Islam, the ultimate goal is subjective immortality in God’s presence, while within Hinayana Buddhism the ultimate goal is the extinction of the self as a discrete, conscious entity.
However, significant, widespread diversity also exists within basic theistic systems. For example, within Christianity, believers differ significantly on the nature of God.
Some see God as all controlling, others as self-limiting, and still others as incapable in principle of unilaterally controlling any aspect of reality. Some believe God to have infallible knowledge only of all that has occurred or is occurring, others claim God also has knowledge of all that will actually occur, while those who believe God possesses middle knowledge add that God knows all that would actually occur in any possible context.
Some believe the moral principles stipulated by God for correct human behavior flow from God’s nature and thus that such principles determine God’s behavior, while others believe that God acts in accordance with a different set of moral rules, that for God what is right is simply whatever God does.
Some believe that only those who have consciously “given their lives to Christ” will spend eternity in God’s presence. Others believe that many who have never even heard the name of Jesus will enter God’s presence, while others yet do not even believe subjective immortality (a conscious afterlife) to be a reality.
Muslims also differ significantly among themselves on these same divine attributes. Or consider the wide variety of Muslim perspectives on such issues as the autonomy of the individual when interpreting the Qur’an, how best to apply core Islamic values to modern life, and the status of women.
While it is still somewhat popular in philosophical circles today to focus on diversity among basic theistic systems, there is a growing awareness that the same basic questions (and responses) that apply to inter-system diversity (for example, to differing perspectives on the most accurate basic theistic conception of God) apply just as clearly, and in exactly the same sense, to intra-system diversity (for example, to differing perspectives within Christianity over the extent of God’s knowledge).
And there is increasing awareness that the practical import of intra-theistic diversity is just as significant as is that of inter-theistic diversity.
For most Christians, for instance, the practical significance of retaining or modifying beliefs about God’s power or knowledge is just as great as retaining or modifying the belief that Christianity is a better theistic explanatory hypothesis than is Islam.
Read on: Religious Studies as an Academic Discipline
Possible Responses to Religious Diversity
One obvious response to religious diversity is to maintain that since there exists no divine reality since the referent in all religious truth claims related to the divine is nonexistent all such claims are false.
Another possible response, put forth by religious relativists, is that there is no one truth when considering mutually incompatible religious claims about reality; more than one of the conflicting sets of specific truth-claims can be correct.
However, most current discussions of religious diversity presuppose a realist theory of truth that there is a truth to the matter. When the topic is approached in this way, philosophers normally center discussions of religious truth claims on three basic categories: religious exclusivism, religious non exclusivism, and religious pluralism.
For the purpose of our discussion, someone is a religious exclusivist with respect to a given issue when she believes the religious perspective of only one basic theistic system (for instance, only one of the major world religions) or only one of the variants within a basic theistic system (for instance, within Christianity) to be the truth or at least closer to the truth than any other religious perspective on this issue.
Someone is a religious non-exclusivist with respect to a given issue when she denies that the religious perspective of any basic theistic system or variant thereof is superior to all other religious perspectives on this issue.
And someone is a religious pluralist with respect to a given issue when she claims not only (as a non-exclusivist) that no specific religious perspective is superior but also makes the positive claim that the religious perspectives of more than one basic theistic system or variant thereof are equally close to the truth.
Religious Diversity and Justified Belief
What if we assume, as do most philosophers today, that belief assessment in the face of religious diversity will not normally resolve debate over conflicting religious perspectives in an objective manner? That is, what if we assume that while the consideration of criteria such as self-consistency and comprehensiveness can rule out certain options, there exists no set of criteria that will allow us to resolve most religious epistemic disputes (either between or within religious perspectives) in a neutral, non-question-begging fashion?
In what epistemic position does this then place the exclusivist? Or to use the phrasing preferred in the current “epistemology of disagreement” debates, to what extent, if any, is it reasonable for an exclusivist to retain her exclusivist beliefs when it is acknowledged that epistemic peers disagree? The answer, as some see it, is that the exclusivist can no longer justifiably maintain that her exclusivist beliefs are true. J.C. Schellenberg, for example, argues that because no more than one among a set of incompatible truth claims can be true, a disputant in a debate over such claims is justified in continuing to maintain that her claim is true only if she possesses non-question-begging justification for believing the incompatible claim of any competitor to be false.
However, since no disputant in religious conflicts possesses such justification, no disputant can be justified “in holding her own claim to be true.” Or, as Schellenberg states this conclusion in another context, we must conclude that in the absence of objective, non-question- begging justification, none of the disputants in religious conflicts “has justification for supposing the others’ claims false”.
David Silver comes to a similar conclusion: “[Exclusivists] should provide independent evidence for the claim that they have a special source of religious knowledge … or they should relinquish their exclusivist religious beliefs” (Silver 2001, 11).
The proper response for the exclusivist, most in this camp argue, is to suspend judgment — is for the person who was an exclusivist to abandon her exclusivistic position and give equal weight to all the self-consistent, comprehensive perspectives in play (Christiansen, 2009; Feldman, 2007).
Others have not gone this far, arguing rather that while the exclusivist need not abandon religious belief in the face of unresolved conflict, she must or at least will hold her exclusive religious beliefs more tentatively (with less confidence).
Philip Quinn argues, for instance, that acknowledged epistemic parity necessarily has a negative (epistemically humbling) impact on the level of justification for any religious belief system.
Such parity does not necessarily minimize justification below a level sufficient for rational acceptability. But for those proponents of a religion who are “sufficiently aware of religious diversity, the justification that the [religion] receives from its sources is a good deal less than would be the case were there no such diversity” (Quinn, 2005a, 137).
James Kraft agrees. When a person acknowledges that those with whom she disagrees are equivalently informed and capable and have made no obvious mistakes in reasoning, this person’s confidence in her perspective, we are told, is rightly reduced (Kraft, 2007).
The tentativeness this reduction in confidence produces, McKim tells us, does not entail never-ending inquiry. What it means, rather, is that in the face of unresolved religious diversity, one should be open to the possibility “that one or more of the [alternatives] may be correct … that the position one had thought to be correct may be wrong [while] one of the other positions may be right” (McKim 2001, 154–55). Joseph Runzo and Gary Gutting agree.
According to Runzo, “all faith commitments must be held with the humbling recognition that they can be misguided, for our knowledge is never sure” (Runzo 1993, 236).
Gutting argues that only interim, not decisive assent is justified in the face of unresolved diversity and that “those who give merely interim assent must recognize the equal value, as an essential element in the continuing discussion, of beliefs contrary to theirs” (Gutting 1982, 108).
Moreover, argues McKim, such tentativeness in the face of diversity has an important payoff. It can lead to deep tolerance: the allowance “that those with whom you disagree are people whom it is worthwhile to approach with rational arguments” (McKim 2001, 178) And personal tolerance of this sort, we are told, may well lead to a more tolerant and open society that will permit and even encourage a diversity of opinion on all issues, including opinions on religious matters.
William Alston represents an even more charitable response to exclusivism. His perspective is based on what he sees as a crucial distinction between two types of epistemic disputes: those in which “it is clear what would constitute non-circular grounds for supposing one of the contestants to be superior to the others” and those in which it is not.
In the former case in those cases in which there is a commonly accepted “procedure for settling disputes” it isn’t clear, he acknowledges, that it is rational for a person to continue to maintain that her position is superior (Alston 1988, 442–443).
However, as Alston sees it, there exists no such common ground for settling basic epistemic disputes over religious truth claims, and this, he contends, alters the situation drastically. It still remains true, he grants, that the reality of religious diversity diminishes justification.
But the fact that “we are at a loss to specify [common ground]” means, he argues, that with respect to those religious perspectives that are self-consistent, it is not “irrational for one to remain an exclusivist” — not irrational for the proponent of any religious perspective to continue to hold that her perspective is true.
That is, as Alston sees it, given the absence of common ground for resolving disputes, the proponent of any self-consistent religious perspective can justifiably continue to believe this perspective to be true “despite not being able to show that it is epistemically superior to the competition”.
In fact, at one point he goes even further. Because there exists at present no neutral ground for adjudicating religious epistemic conflicts, it is not only the case, Alston argues, that an exclusivist is justified (rational) in continuing to consider her own perspective superior.
Since we do not even know in most cases what a non-circular reason for demonstrating superiority would look like, the “only rational course” for an exclusivist “is to sit tight” with the beliefs “which [have] served so well in guiding [her] activity in the world.”
Or, to generalize this point, Alston speaks for those who maintain that, given the absence of common ground for adjudicating disputes concerning self-consistent religious perspectives, it is not rational for an exclusivist to stop maintaining that her system is superior (Alston 1988, 444).
Philip Quinn represents yet another, increasingly popular approach. While he agrees with Alston that in the face of diversity an exclusivist may well be justified in continuing to “sit tight” — in continuing to maintain that her religious perspective is true — he denies that this is the only rational course of action available (Quinn 2000, 235–246).
The basis for this position is his distinction between a pre-Kantian and a Kantian understanding of religious belief.
To have a pre-Kantian understanding of religious belief is to assume that we have (or at least can have) access to the truth as it really is. It is to believe, for instance, that we do (or at least can in principle) know what God is really like.
To have a Kantian understanding of religious belief is to assume that although there is a literal noumenal reality, our understanding of this reality (and thus our truth claims about this reality) will of necessity be relative to the cultural/social/psychological grids through which our conceptualization of this noumenal reality is processed.
It is to believe, for instance, that although there is a divine reality about which we can make truth claims, our understanding of (and thus our truth claims about) this divine reality will necessarily to some extent be conditioned by the ways in which our environment (our culture in the broadest sense) has shaped our categories of thought (Quinn 2000, 241–242).
Alston, Quinn contends, is essentially working off of a pre-Kantian model of religious belief when he encourages religious exclusivists to sit tight in the face of peer conflict since, in the absence of any objective basis for determining which perspective is right, the exclusivist has no sufficient reason not to do so.
Quinn does not deny that this pre-Kantian approach is justifiable and thus does not deny that someone who follows Alston’s advice to sit tight is rational in doing so.
However, Quinn believes that “it should not be taken for granted that any of the [contending perspectives] in its present form is correct.” Hence, he believes it is equally justifiable for an exclusivist to adopt a Kantian approach to religious belief.
Specifically, he believes it is equally justifiable for an exclusivist to assume that whatever any of us can know about the truth of the matter will never be a description of religious reality that is free of significant “cultural” conditioning.
Accordingly, it is also rational, he maintains, for exclusivists encountering diverse truth claims to “seek a more inclusivist or pluralistic understanding of their own faith” by modifying their beliefs to bring them “into line with such an understanding” (Quinn 2000, 242).
In short, as Quinn sees it, those who hold a position such as Alston’s have left us, at least implicitly, with a false dilemma: either we find common ground on which we can objectively determine which religious perspective is the truth or we sit tight with what we have.
However, Quinn holds that, once we realize it is perfectly reasonable for a person to assume that the proponent of no religious perspective has (or even could have) an accurate understanding of divine reality as it really is, another rational alternative appears.
We then see that it is also perfectly rational for a person to begin to revise her own phenomenological perspective on the truth in a way that will allow for greater overlap with the phenomenological perspectives of others. The approach to conflicting religious perspectives Quinn outlines has in fact become increasingly popular in exclusivistic circles.
Consider, for example, the ongoing debate among Christians over how God brought the rest of reality into existence. Some still claim the Bible clearly teaches that God created the “heavens and the earth” in six twenty-four hour periods about ten thousand years ago.
Others still maintain that the fact that “a day is to the Lord as a thousand years” means that while God is directly responsible for what the Bible says was created each “day,” it is most reasonable to believe that the time frame for each instance of creative activity could well have been millions, or even billions, of years. And then there are those who still hold that God’s direct creative activity consisted primarily of orchestrating the “Big Bang.”
However, more recently, many Christians have taken a more Kantian approach. Based on their assumption that we may well not have access, even though Scripture, to exactly how God was involved in the creative process, they have modified what is to be considered essential to Christianity on this issue.
Rather than affirming any of the specific explanations of how God created all else, they affirm a more general contention compatible with each of these specific explanations: that God is in some manner directly responsible for the existence of all else. They have, in Quinn’s terms, thinned their core theologies in a way that reconciles the divergent perspectives.
Everyone realizes, though, that moving toward a thinner theology and thicker phenomenology can resolve the epistemic tension produced by religious diversity only to a certain extent.
Even if we assume that it is perfectly reasonable, and possibly even preferable, for exclusivists to thin their theologies (and thus thicken their phenomenologies) in an attempt to minimize that core of truths that must be accepted to remain proponents of the specific theological perspectives in question, to be an exclusivist even a strongly Kantian exclusivist is still to believe that one’s religious perspective is superior in the sense that it is in some important way closer to the truth than are the competing perspectives of others.
Accordingly, while thinning her theology may be a rational choice that can minimize conflict, no one is arguing that it can be the sole response for an exclusivist.
At some point, a person must either cease to be the exclusivist she was or choose one of the other options: acknowledge that the belief in question isn’t true, hold it more tentatively, or sit tight with what she has.
Finally, we find at the far end of the spectrum those who deny that acknowledged peer conflict does in fact require the exclusivist to abandon her exclusivism or even reduce confidence in her exclusivistic perspectives.
The key to this position is a distinction between personal (private) evidence and public evidence (evidence available to all persons involved in the dispute).
It is granted that an individual will often find herself in epistemic disputes with persons who are epistemic peers in the sense that they are
(1) Equally intelligent, thoughtful, and free from obvious bias
(2) Equally familiar with all the relevant public evidence.
But the final judgments made by each participant in such disputes are not made solely on this public evidence, it is held. Such judgments are based also on personal beliefs to which only each participant has access. Jennifer Lackey notes, for instance, that each person in an epistemic dispute has greater access to the reliability of her own belief-forming faculties than do her epistemic competitors (Lackey, 2010). Ernest Sosa talks of “the gulf between the private and public domain”.
Peter van Inwagen speaks of “incommunicable insight that the others, for all their merits, lack” (van Inwagen, 1996). And the weight of this private evidence, it is argued, can make it reasonable for an individual to retain her beliefs (including exclusivistic religious beliefs) with the same level of confidence, even in the face of acknowledged peer disagreement in the public sense.
Some critics, of course, will maintain that this is primarily a verbal victory. The question, remember, is whether an exclusivist who acknowledges that epistemic peers hold incompatible perspectives can continue to justifiably maintain with full confidence that her perspective is superior.
And it will seem to some that to claim that participants in epistemic disputes have access to relevant personal evidence not available to their epistemic competitors is in fact simply to acknowledge that the dispute is really not among true epistemic peers in the sense originally intended that is, in the sense that all parties are assessing the same body of evidence.
Religious Diversity in Public Education
Public education in Western culture has always been to some extent a “melting pot.” But the increasing number of students with non-Western cultural values and religious traditions is causing public school educators to grapple in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways with the challenges such diversity poses.
Some of these challenges are practical — e.g., should Muslim girls be allowed to wear burkas, should schools designate only Christian religious holy days as school holidays?
The focus of this section, however, will be a pedagogical question of increasing interest in the philosophy of education: How ought the increasing religious diversity to which students are exposed to affect public school curricula? (Basinger, 2010).
Most public school educators agree that increasing student understanding of diverse religious perspectives is important as this will have positive social outcomes. It is often argued, for instance, that helping students better understand the increasing diversity, including religious diversity, they face will better prepare them to live in a peaceful, productive manner with those with differing cultural and/or religious values (Kunzman, 2006).
Many educators, however, want to go further.
It is also important, they maintain, for students to clarify their feelings about other religions and their followers. Specifically, they want to foster a more empathetic understanding of other religious perspectives, an understanding that encourages students to appreciate the other religions from the perspective of an adherent of that religion (Kunzman, 2006).
While few challenge this as a valid goal, there is, though, continuing controversy over one common method by which educators attempt to engender this type of empathy in students.
As some see it, while having students think about diverse religions is an important step past the mere dissemination of factual information toward empathetic understanding, having students directly experience these religions in some way for instance, having students visit a local mosque or having a representative from a Buddhist Center share with students in a class is also necessary (or at least very desirable).
However, while no one denies that these forms of direct experience might broaden a student’s empathetic understanding of a religion, concerns have been raised.
First, some believe that having students experience a religion, even as “observers,” can test the limits of the separation of church and state. While the intent of having students attend a mosque or having a Buddhist talk with students is seldom to “promote” a religion, the line between “exposure” and intended or unintended promotion (and even proselytization), they maintain, is a fine one, especially given the widely varying communication skills and deeply embedded values and preconceptions of the teacher and/or the representatives of a given religion to whom students might be exposed.
Second, there is growing ethical concern that to experience a religion as an observer might in some cases trivialize or demean the religion in question. Some Native Americans, for instance, are becoming increasingly concerned with the growing desire of “outsiders” to seek understanding of their religion(s) by watching or experiencing sacred ceremonies since such observation, they believe, can trivialize these ceremonies.
Is it justifiable for the public school educator to go even further than the dissemination of accurate information and the attempted engendering of empathetic understanding?
Specifically, ought an educator attempt to bring it about that all students affirm a core set of “appropriate” beliefs about other religions and their adherents? It is clearly the case that almost all public school educators currently do attempt to bring it about that students hold certain beliefs related to pervasive human characteristics, such as race, gender, and disabling conditions.
Students are encouraged, for instance, to continue to believe, or come to believe, that engaging in intolerant or discriminatory behavior is wrong and that they should affirm, or come to affirm, the inherent worth and rights of the disabled, those of other racial/ethnic backgrounds, etc.
So if the desire is simply to also encourage students to believe it wrong to treat those of other religions in intolerant or discriminatory ways and to believe it right to accept those of other religions as persons with equal inherent value, few will object.
But need teachers stop there? Might there not be other beliefs about religions and their adherents that public school educators can justifiably attempt to bring it about that all students accept? We can extrapolate from some recent work on religious diversity by Robert Wuthnow to introduce two beliefs that some might propose fit into this category.
As Wuthnow sees it, the most appropriate response to the increasing religious diversity we face in this country is what he labels “reflective pluralism” (Wuthnow, 2005: 286-307).
To engage is this sort of reflection, he tells us, is not simply to become better informed, or to strive to “live peacefully with those with whom one disagrees” (be tolerant), or even to attempt to develop an empathetic understanding of diverse religions.
It is to engage intentionally and purposefully with “people and groups whose religious practices are fundamentally different from one’s own” (Wuthnow, 2005: 289). And such engagement, as he understands it, includes both
(1) the recognition that since all of our beliefs, including our religious beliefs, depend on a point of view “shaped by the culture in which we live,” we should not regard our “own positions as inherently superior”
(2) “a principled willingness to compromise” in the sense that we must be willing to move out of our social and emotional comfort levels “in order to arrive at a workable relationship with another person” (Wuthnow, 2005: 292).
The benefit of this form of engagement, we are told, is not only that it can minimize the likelihood of the sorts of “religious tensions, conflicts, and violence [that] have been so much a part of human history” (Wuthnow, 2005: 293).
Such reflective engagement also allows us to focus on “the shared concerns for basic human dignity” found in the teachings of many of the world’s religions, which can furnish a basis for inter-religious cooperation to combat social ills and meet basic social needs (Wuthnow, 2005: 294).
It is important to note that Wuthnow does not explicitly claim or deny that encouraging students in a public school setting to become reflective pluralists would be appropriate. But not only does he highlight two increasingly popular pluralistic claims about religions
(1) that the beliefs of many religions are equally valid expressions of faith, expressions that adherents of these religions should be allowed or even encouraged to maintain.
(2) that religious believers of all faiths should identify and focus on what these religions have in common he highlights what such pluralists often note as the main benefits of widespread affirmation of these beliefs: a reduction in violent religious conflicts and an increase in socially beneficial inter-religious cooperation.
And these outcomes are clearly quite compatible with what we have seen to be a key reason why public school educators want to increase student understanding of other religions namely, their desire to better prepare students to live in a peaceful, productive manner in social contexts that will increasingly be characterized by religious diversity.
Accordingly, since it seems reasonable to believe that widespread acceptance of the validity of diverse religious perspectives and increased focus on the commonalities in diverse religions might well result in more peaceful, mutually beneficial interaction among followers of diverse religions, the question of whether public school teachers can justifiably attempt to bring it about that students affirm the beliefs in question appears worthy of exploration.
Let’s first consider the contention that many religions contain equally valid expressions of faith.
Even if we make the debatable assumption that this is true, it won’t be clear to many that a public school teacher could justifiably attempt to bring it about that her or his students believed this to be so.
The problem is that various religions affirm conflicting doctrinal beliefs on significant issues. For example, while conservative Christians maintain that one must affirm certain beliefs about the saving power of Christ to spend eternity in God’s presence, conservative Muslims strongly deny this.
Orthodox Christians and Muslims are taught not only that the sacred scriptures of other religions contain false beliefs; they are often encouraged to try to convert those of other religions to their religious perspective. And while many Muslims and Christians believe in a personal supernatural creator and personally immortality, some Buddhists deny both.
This, however, means that an educator can justifiably attempt to convince students that all religions are equally valid expressions of faith only if she or he can justifiably attempt to convince conservative proponents of some of these religions that some of their core doctrinal beliefs need to be modified or rejected.
And to attempt to do this in a public school setting will be seen by many as violating the prohibition against both restricting the free exercise of religion and promoting a given religion (Basinger, 2010).
Might it not, though, at least be justifiable for a public school educator to encourage students to respect the right of adherents to other religions to retain their current religious beliefs? If we interpret this as asking whether an educator can justifiably encourage students not to attempt to prohibit adherents to other religions from expressing and acting in accordance with their beliefs, a positive response is noncontroversial since this is only to say once again that educators should encourage students to be tolerant.
However, to encourage respect for the religious beliefs of others often carries with it the explicit or implicit assumption that it is inappropriate, if not unethical, to attempt to convince adherents of one religion to convert to another.
And for a public school educator to attempt to convince all students that it is wrong to proselytize will again be seen by some as placing this educator in the legally and morally questionable position of attempting to convince some students to reject or modify what for them is a very fundamental, core religious belief.
Perhaps, however, there is a different, less controversial option for those educators who want to do more than simply encourage tolerance of expression and empathetic understanding.
Is it not at least justifiable for the public school teacher to attempt to point out the important common values affirmed by most of the world’s major religions, values that we can all accept and should all desire to see lived out?
Is it not justifiable for an educator to point out, for instance, that most of the world’s major religions prohibit such things as killing, lying, stealing, and sexual exploitation, and that these same religions encourage such things as helping those in need and treating adherents of other religions with respect.
To do so, it has been argued, would not simply be of value within the classroom or community.
Since religious convictions clearly influence social, political and economic activity on a global scale, emphasizing the shared common values of religions has the potential to facilitate better global relationships.
And to encourage such relationships is surely an appropriate goal of public education (Shingleton, 2008).
Some, of course, will see any focus on “positive commonalities” as yet another thinly veiled attempt to encourage students to modify their current religious beliefs in ways that make such beliefs more accommodating of other religious perspectives.
However, most see no legal or ethical reason why a teacher should not expose students to the “positive commonalities” in diverse religious perspectives, and many see this as a helpful step.
As we have seen, discussions of religious diversity lend themselves to no easy answers. The issues are many, the arguments complex, and the responses varied. It would be hard, though, to overstate the practical significance of this topic.
While some (many) issues that philosophers discuss have practical implications for how we view ourselves and treat others, none is more relevant today than the question of religious diversity.
Religious pluralism cannot be ignored in our contemporary global setting. The growth and universal spread of religious sensitivity are compelling for us to recognize the most plausible approach to religious dialogue. We have seen that religious pluralism and diversity require our tolerance and respect of one another.
Religious diversity is so pervasive that that it cuts across divisions of religions but it is even found in intra religious affinities. This also affects nearly all facets of our lives and more especially education.
